


This Thing About Family

by bluebells



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Post-Cage Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-14
Updated: 2011-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-27 08:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebells/pseuds/bluebells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean has two not-quite-complete brothers back from the cage and he's not sure that he's coping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Thing About Family

**Author's Note:**

> Based around the timing of 6x06.

Some days are better than others.

They start between eight and ten depending on the motel’s check-out time.

Dean sets the tone by how hard he shuts the bathroom door when he staggers in for his morning shower. He doesn’t mean to do it, and sometimes he catches himself before the door actually slams, but the louder it is, the sharper it wakes everyone else.

Sam doesn’t sleep anymore, so, the ‘everyone’ is really just Adam.

Sometimes Adam is forgiving or too tired to even groan. Sometimes he just rolls over and buries his head under the pillow for the five minutes it takes Dean to re-emerge, before dragging himself up for his turn.

Sometimes Dean even pats his shoulder when Adam stumbles past him.

“Hey,” Dean says.

Adam cracks an eye open and nods _good morning._

“S’up.”

Some mornings are not so good.

Sam watches, almost amused, when Adam hurls his boots at the bathroom door after it slams too hard.

“Ass,” Adam groans, sinking back down into his pillow with a wince. After a moment’s respite, the muffled words follow: “Morning, Sam.”

“G’morning.”

But Adam’s already wincing and Sam’s aware that, as far as Dean’s concerned, it’s all downhill from there.

 

Sam and Dean used to think they ate regularly. They never went hungry, but sometimes they were waist deep into a time-critical case and it could be midnight by the time they realised that they last considered food at the drive-through breakfast more than twelve hours ago. They’re used to that.

Adam has to eat every two hours, or he starts twitching with irritation. He’s picking fights after three hours, but if it hits the upper threshold of four, Sam’s ears ring from all the name-calling and Dean is threatening to leave Adam by the side of the road.

They think it has something to do with his metabolic rate of healing.

Sam accompanies Adam into the grocery store when Dean finally pulls over, shoving the gear shift into park.

“Is that enough?” Sam asks when Adam turns for the check-out.

Adam looks at his armload of corn chips, apples, soda and the two-litre bottle of water he’d asked Sam to carry.

“Uh… yeah. For now.”

From that answer, Sam doesn’t agree. He nods back at the aisle.

“You better get double. We could be on the road for a while today.”

Adam blinks at him in a startled sort of way and it gets even wider when Sam grabs another bottle of tomato sauce. He’s not sure what that look means and he doesn’t particularly care for anything except for the fact that every time they need to pull over it’s an accumulative hour or two they lose on their case. And Adam insists on putting tomato sauce on everything, so they run out pretty fast.

Sam remembers these things.

“Thanks, Sam,” Adam says, looking a little bewildered as Sam throws money at the cashier and urges him towards the Impala with a nudge at his arm.

Dean double-takes at the sight of them with a double armload of shopping bags between them.

“Jesus Christ, Martha, are you starting a cooking show?”

Adam throws a bag of cookies into his lap.

“Got something for you, too.”

Dean suddenly looks prepared to forgive his youngest brother for the last hour’s earful.

“Oh… okay….”

Adam smiles. “Can I have some?”

 

It starts with a wince, a double blink away from the sunlight in Adam’s eyes.

“Hey, Sam, can I borrow the sunglasses from the glove compartment?”

Sam hears Dean’s tight sigh beside his shoulder when he turns back to the front seat, clicking the compartment shut. Adam slides into the furthest corner away from the afternoon sun and rests his head back against the cushion, arms folded as though he’s settling in for sleep.

“How you feeling, kid?”

“Like I’m about to win the Kentucky derby. Thanks for asking.”

Adam’s reply is stiff. What did that used to mean… defensive? Was that right?

“You need drugs?” Dean asks and Sam wonders why he’s taken that leap in logic.

“Drugs are for junkies.”

“Drugs are for pain,” Dean retorts, “Cut it off before it gets bad. You don’t want to see Sam’s face if he has to hold your hair while you puke over the side of the road, right?”

“Why would I hold his hair?” Sam asks.

Dean rolls his eyes and abruptly narrows a glare at a semi-trailer when it attempts, and fails, to overtake them.

“’Cause you’re a big softie, Sam,” He says.

“As soft as robots get,” Adam mutters from the backseat.

“He doesn’t have enough hair to hold,” Sam gestures broadly.

Dean shoves his hand blindly into one of the bags between them, paper crumpling noisily. He pushes a thin box of painkillers at Sam’s chest.

“Give the drugs to your brother, Sam.”

Sam sighs, but obediently twists round in his seat. Adam’s hand drops away from what looked like a tight grip on his left shoulder and he scowls when Sam holds the box out to him.

“I don’t know why he’s talking about your hair, but I don’t want to have to pull over again,” Sam says.

Adam’s lip curls, sour look darkening, but he takes the box of painkillers.

“Fine.”

“Atta boy,” Dean chimes and turns up the air conditioner.

Cool air blasts through the compartment and Adam hisses out a sound of relief.

Sam finally notices the sweat beading on his forehead and upper lip. It’s weird, because he doesn’t feel hot at all. He would have expected the cool autumn weather to require a warmer air flow.

“Are you going to be sick?” Sam asks when Adam jerks with an involuntary shudder, jaw wound tight.

Adam’s lips press into a thin line and his arms rewrap tightly around himself.

“I’ll aim for the back of your head.”

 _“Not in the car!”_ Dean’s warning is predictable.

Adam smirks, but even to Sam, it looks forced. And that’s how he learns; it all starts with a wince.

 

The next time they pull over it’s actually Dean who’s hunting for food.

Sam leans against the trunk, hands in his pockets as Dean hovers in the open passenger door.

Adam’s pressed his entire body into the back of the seat as though he’s trying to bury himself within it. He found the baseball cap salvaged from three cases back, peeking out from under Dean’s seat, and he’s pulled it down over his sunglasses.

“You sure you don’t want anything?” Dean asks, sharply.

“”M fine,” Sam hears the gritted reply.

Dean hovers, lips parted as though he has something else to add, but he straightens abruptly and fixes Sam with one of those grim, determined looks.

“What?”

Dean closes the passenger door, leaning his weight against it until it shuts with a soft click.

“Stay with him. I’ll be right back,” Dean’s barely taken a step towards the fast food joint when he pauses, glancing back over his shoulder, “You still have a salad fetish?”

Sam shrugs. He’ll eat whatever’s put in front of him and burn it off later anyway.

“Sure. Don’t really care.”

Dean’s mouth twists in exasperation and he shakes his head. “Should have seen that one coming."

He stalks off and Sam’s left with the impression that was not the honest answer Dean was looking for. There’s not much Sam can do about that.

He peers through the back window. Adam hasn’t moved, but after about a minute, his hat disappears from the headrest and Sam realises he’s laid himself out along the backseat, hat over his face and fist tucked into his chest.

Sam repositions himself against the passenger door so he can watch as Dean had asked.

Adam’s shoulders are tight and every few breaths, Sam sees his body tremor with his exhale.

Dean returns with a paper bag of dinner fifteen minutes later and when they slide back into their seats, Adam’s soft snores tell them he’s fallen asleep.

Sam pulls the bag open and assumes the Caesar salad he finds is for him. He rolls his window down, the air in the car is stale and Dean hasn’t put the keys in the ignition, which means they’re probably going to eat in the parking lot.

Dean presses light fingers to the pulse at Adam’s wrist and when he doesn’t stir, Dean’s hand moves to his neck, eyes unfocused as he concentrates.

Sam recognises those gestures.

“Is he burning up?”

Dean nods, but his face doesn’t look so grim anymore.

“Well, if he makes it through the night without throwing up over the backseat, I’m taking it as a win.”

Sam hums noncommittally, remembering what happened the last time Dean failed to pull over in time. Adam rolled the window down and just puked down the side of the Impala. For some reason, Dean still lost his head. Sam sees no ambiguity: it’s a lot easier to hose down polished metal than sponge clean a leather interior.

Adam hasn’t looked at double bacon cheeseburgers the same way ever since.

Sam crunches noisily on his lettuce. Adam would probably enjoy it, if he was awake. A thought occurs to him and when Sam glances in the paper bag again, he confirms the second salad that was underneath his own, beside Dean’s burger and fries.

“Huh, good thinking,” Sam says, handing the bag off to Dean, “He’ll be chomping when he wakes up. There’s no stores where we’re going.”

The bag sits in Dean’s lap, but his brother’s staring out over the dashboard and that expression is back – the grim, thoughtfulness that tells Sam his dinner’s about to be interrupted for some serious and emotionally high-strung talk.

That didn’t take very long.

Sam takes a larger bite than he can necessarily fit in his mouth and salad dressing drips down his chin.

“… What the hell am I doing?” Dean’s voice is quiet and his shoulders shake with the low, bitter laugh that almost sounds like a cough. “I should have dropped him at Bobby’s.”

Sam licks his lips and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You should have.”

He was sure there was another bottle of water around here somewhere….

He peers over the back of his seat and swipes through the brown paper bags of food that almost always seem to take up the backseat these days. He misses Dean’s soft look of grief.

“I can’t handle the two of you like this. It’s… God, I don’t even know where to start.”

Sam’s hand closes around the object of his search, but his fingers brush against cold glass beaded with condensation.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Dean,” Sam says, resettling in his seat, “But you can start with a beer. I’ll drive.”

Dean looks at the proffered beer, and then stares at him as though he’s grown a second head.

“There’s no way you’re touching my baby, Sam.”

“I don’t need to sleep and I can get us to where we’re going. You look like you could use the rest.”

Dean clearly thinks Sam hasn’t considered the implications of his suggestion.

“I _look_ like I could use the rest? Do I _look_ licensed to put a soulless dude behind the wheel? You’d probably mow down some old lady rather than slow and delay the _case_.”

Dean grabs the bottle from Sam’s hand and takes a long drink, throat rolling as he swallows deep gulps. Sam doesn’t see the logic if Dean’s intention is to spite him, but he’s not about to say that. He’s not about to tell Dean that he’s probably right either, if Sam felt the need was urgent enough.

“Dean, I’m soulless, not stupid; that would draw way too much attention to us and I’m pretty sure that four months ago, my face went on a federal wanted list.”

Dean laughs like’s he about ready to give up on the world.

Sam remembers that he used to care about keeping Dean happy. He’s learned the things not to say around Dean (and he thought that was pretty good) because it inadvertently upset Adam and those side tracks always cost them precious time.

He may as well cut to the chase.

“Look, you’re not going to send Adam away to Bobby. Not while he wants to be with us and he can still stand on his own two feet. You and I know, you have a thing about family, so let’s just get on with the case, but let me drive. Please.”

“I have a _thing_ about family,” Dean says, slow and thick. “You know, Sam, even though you probably have no idea what you just said, it’s the first time you’ve sounded like you’ve still got some intuition: I’m not sending him anywhere.”

Dean gestures angrily between the three of them.

“Our _family_ is the only thing we have, Sam. Family is _everything_.”

 _For you_ , Sam doesn't say and tries to remember what it felt like when it was true for him, too. He eventually shrugs and sticks his plastic fork in his now empty salad box.

“I can relearn this stuff.”

There’s a beat of silence and Sam’s crumpling down the container of his dinner when the keys are dangled in his face. He stops and looks at Dean, incredulous.

“Are you serious?”

Dean’s face is wiped clean of emotion.

“You think you can, so get us there. I’m drinking.”

There’s a strangled noise of pain from the back and they both turn. Adam’s curled himself into a tight ball, fingers digging into the seat. His eyes are shut, breaths coming unevenly and Sam can’t tell if he’s awake or asleep.

“Michael didn’t agree with him,” Sam says and the look Dean throws at him is pure daggers.

His brother shakes his head, angry and disappointed.

“I miss you, Sam.”

Dean’s in and out of the car so fast that Sam barely registers the doors slamming and opening again before Adam moans, Dean’s sliding in beside him and resettling Adam’s head on his lap.

Sam moves across the front seat, buckling himself in and when he looks up in the rear-view mirror, Adam is slowly uncoiling with one of Dean’s hands loosely over his waist. Adam’s expression is still tight and pained, but his eyes are open as Dean pushes the wet fringe back from his forehead.

Dean meets Sam’s eyes in the mirror.

“Drive.”

The engine’s gurgle is like the wet roar of a familiar monster and Sam’s fingers tighten around the wheel.


End file.
